300-pounder barred from Texas pee wee

Hooah on this. What the heck is a 12-year-old kid doing weighing 3 bills? Seeing the pic made me think he gets at least some of it from his family, but if they don't get him under control, kid is going to have serious health issues later on in life.

 

Good lord, he's 12 years old. Let's at least wait till he gets to high school and see if he still enjoys football.

My nephew is 13 and almost as big as I am, and his stones haven't even dropped yet. He's the best lineman on his eighth-grade team, and yet I fear he'll be toting a tuba in three years.

 

My pee-wee league had a maximum and minimum limit. I was one of only a few third graders big enough to play (I think they had a minimum height too). I was 5'7" and barely over 100 pounds in third grade.

I remember they had weight limits for skill positions too. The guy who was always the QB weighed too much to play QB in sixth grade and took off running laps until he lost the few pounds he had to.

As for this kid, agree with the others ... he's a big boy and needs to play with other big boys.

 

When I played Pop Warner, everything was done by weight until you were over 12. When we got to junior high, everybody went into the same league and there were some giants. One guy who was a year behind me was 6-5, 275 in seventh grade, not fat at all... He played in our league. It wasn't a huge deal.

 

I'm going to give league official Henderson the benefit of the doubt and say he and other league officials "hate" having to turn this kid away and tell him he can't play with them.

I'm also going to give the kid the benefit of doubt and believe that he wants to play with his friends -- no matter their, or his, size -- instead of playing with kids he doesn't know.

At this point, it sounds like playing football, per se, is still more his mom's dream than his.

 

'"The coach over there should have known this," Henderson said.

Biggest problem is I think the kid was allowed to practice for like three weeks before he was kicked to the curb. That is what I think Henderson is referring to ... that the kid was misled to believe he could play at the start. Had he just been told no, then this would have not been as big a deal.

My youth league had an upper limit of about 160 IIRC, and we could play until we were 13 or 14. And I think the weight limit went up a few pounds every week. Guys would be going to saunas and running for hours before the games to try to make weight. I never came that close. We played a "friendly" against a team from another rural county, and these kids were monsters, and we were terrified when they walked out. But we pushed them all over the field because they were just big softies.

Another league in my state allows fat kids to play, but they have to wear a 2-inch neon stripe on their helmets and can only play interior line positions. Could not believe when I saw that. How embarrassing for the kids.

 

My first reaction was "Eat a salad, fatass" but I was expecting some kid as round as a backyard trampoline with cheesecake squirting out his pores. This kid is a damn big kid. Could he be more lean? Probably, though it's hard to be sure from those photos. But, even pretty damn fit he'd weigh twice what his classmates weigh.

I understand why he's upset, and I understand why the league can't let him play. But I'm not sure we're right in piling on his family for feeding him too much. Does a 12 year old have to have a six pack to be upset about such league rules?

 

I kinda thought that after seeing the picture, too.

He could have acromegaly, like Andre the Giant, or could just be a big kid, like Paul Wight (The Big Show).

Either way, he's not likely to get any smaller ...

 

Yeah, he doesn't look too obese to me. Just a monster for his age. Could mix in a salad or two, but I've seen much fatter kids. He has a huge frame.

 

I believe the "misunderstanding" (at least in the story that I read) came from the fact the coach of the team personally knows the kid and told him and encouraged him to sign up.

 

i played in the mesquite peewee league and had to move up my first year because i weighed 77 pounds and the weight limit for my age group was 75. had never played before and was thrown in with kids who'd been playing 2 years. of course as an adult i wouldn't let my kids play any football until at least 7th grade because the coaching at peewee levels is atrocious and usually teaches poor habits and attitudes.

 

The kid won't get scholarships crushing 120-pounders.